National Cheese Pizza Day — a flawed tribute to mediocrity — Sept. 5

OK, I’m not going to say a matter has been brought to my attention that is a national emergency. I’ll leave it at a New Jersey emergency.

Am I the last to know there is a made-up holiday called National Cheese Pizza Day? Ranker.com let me know about this. They told me in a matter-of-fact manner as if it wasn’t glorifying the blandest way to order pizza in the universe.

Oh, they gave me plenty of stats and data to justify September 5 being a day dedicated to celebrating pizza. We’ll share in just a moment. I’m just saying did it have to be cheese pizza?

Cheese pizza is an empty canvas. It’s the blank canvas without a masterpiece. It’s the first 12 seconds of Bob Ross’s painting show before the happy little trees take form and the happy little lake appears. Or in this case the happy little sausages and happy little mushrooms and all the other toppings a pizza needs to actually be a real pizza.

A plain cheese pizza is lifeless. A plain cheese pizza is a naive 4-year-old at her birthday party thinking she’s been given actual pizza.

No, kid, that’s like being given an empty shoebox and thinking you have sweet kicks.

A plain cheese pizza is being given an area code and thinking you got the girl‘s phone number.

It’s. not. finished.

Anyway.

Celebrate pizza itself? Sure. Ranker.com points out all the food polls they’ve done where pizza in general ranked # 1.

Again, hard agree. But those number-one rankings all should be for pizza in its truest form. With toppings. Complete. Not some vanilla, boring, half-hearted, soulless, circular dough of mediocrity.

The National Day Calendar describes the holiday this way:

On September 5th, National Cheese Pizza Day says, “Hold the toppings!” That’s right, cheese is all you need when celebrating this pizza holiday. Whether the pie is homemade or ordered in, make it cheese only.

This is an abomination. If cheese pizza were a baby it would be a preemie. Not ready yet. If cheese pizza were a car it would be a steering wheel with drive train and a folding chair. Not complete.

Again, Ranker is celebrating pizza in general. I have no issue with that. Other Ranker food polls show pizza 2nd place in categories like most craveable food when pregnant, must-have snacks for gamers, best food to eat on a date.

I particularly like that last one for first dates. Good Jersey litmus test. If she uses a fork, run!

So no, Ranker is fine. It’s the celebrating of the underachieving, lame, plain cheese pizza I have the problem with. How dare you celebrate bare minimum and unfulfilled promises.

Maybe Ranker needs to do another reader poll on dumbest made-up holiday.

Opinions expressed in the post above are those of New Jersey 101.5 talk show host Jeff Deminski only.

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